


breathless

by aegious



Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Emetophobia, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, TW:, i'm not sure if an archive warning actually applies, it's hanahaki what do you expect shrug, it's just kinda graphic lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:27:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23718952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aegious/pseuds/aegious
Summary: breathless [ˈbrɛθ.lɪs]adjective1. without breath or breathing with difficulty; gasping; panting.2. with the breath held, as in suspense, astonishment, fear, or the like.3. dead; lifeless.
Relationships: Izumi Mitsuki/Kujou Ten
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38





	breathless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chronoscore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronoscore/gifts).



> i'm really excited to post this commission from [ran!](https://twitter.com/chronoscore48)
> 
> i've never written hanahaki, or even heavy angst at all, before so this was a really exciting challenge for me!! i hope that i can do the au proud :>

Is this how Riku feels?

Mitsuki looks at himself in the mirror. Sunken eyes, pale skin, too-red lips. His breath hitches, a tiny, bloody petal spills forth from his mouth into the sink, and he knows he can’t go on stage like this. Not when his chest is burning, when his every breath is little more than a choked sob.

But Riku can do this. He’s strong enough to fight his condition, to sing even when he struggles to breathe.

Mitsuki splashes water on his face, washes away the blood. The petal disappears into the drain, all evidence hidden.

He’ll sing with everything he has tonight.

* * *

Tenn spends more of his time at the dorms, recently. It’s always to visit Riku—of course it is, Mitsuki tells himself. There’s nothing else, no one else, he would be here for.

He’s no longer surprised when he opens the door and sees Tenn standing behind it. He doesn’t say anything, lest he vomit out the sunflowers stuck in his throat. He tries to breathe through his nose; it catches. Thorns rake against his lungs.

He might smile, if he wasn’t worried a petal might be stuck between his teeth. Hardly befitting an idol of his caliber.

Tenn steps into the room, observes him closely, not closely enough.

“The bouquet.” Tenn is looking over Mitsuki’s shoulder now, giving him some breathing room. “Is it from a fan?”

Mitsuki doesn’t have to, doesn’t want to look at the vase on the kitchen table behind them. He knows each flower by heart, can feel each petal and leaf of the gardenias and forget-me-nots as if they were in his hands, as if they had just been ripped from his throat.

Mitsuki swallows the flower before he speaks. “I brought them home.” His voice is raw, hoarse. Tenn doesn’t react.

“It’s stunning.” He steps past Mitsuki, toward the bouquet. “And sad.”

Mitsuki’s heart stutters in his chest. He can taste the petals on his tongue now. He bites them back, holds them against his cheek. “Ah, right, you learned all about hanakotoba for Re:vale’s show, didn’t you?”

Coppery blood stains his teeth. He digs his nails into his pants leg. It doesn’t help.

“Tulips,” Tenn mumbles. He’s standing at the table now, elbow leaning on its surface and two fingers playing with the yellow petals. Mitsuki watches his hand, wonders how it would feel on him, swallows another cough. 

He can’t breathe.

“Are you okay? Izumi Mitsuki.”

“Huh?” The question is so sudden that Mitsuki can’t stop the petals that escape from his mouth, fluttering gently to the floor. Tenn isn’t looking at him—he never is. He covers the evidence with his foot.

Slowly, painfully, Tenn turns around and finally stares him in the eye. “You aren’t acting like yourself today. Is something wrong?”

It would be wrong to say that Tenn can see right through him, not when his gaze is so focused on Riku, always Riku. Nevertheless, Mitsuki squirms under the attention, so forceful and intense that he thinks maybe Tenn does know more than he lets on.

He clears his throat. The petals have gone, for now. He has a few minutes of reprieve. “No, I’m fine. Thanks for worrying, Kujou.”

His chest burns, his eyes prickle. He fights back the cough. The vine growing inside him digs itself deeper into his organs, buries its roots alongside his veins. He swallows again.

“You don’t sound okay.” His tone is matter-of-fact and distant, careful and composed. But he takes a step closer, away from the bouquet. Toward him.

“I said I’m—”

He can’t stop it this time.

The petals are yellow this time, too. Camellias. He hasn’t looked this one up, but Tenn’s eyes widen, and his steps come quicker. Each footfall booms in his ears, a rushed and frantic drum that beats out his death song. Mitsuki can hear him even over his coughing as it racks through his chest.

He presses his hands to his lips before more flowers spew forth. Warm blood seeps through his fingers, drips to the floor in deafening splashes.

His legs give out, and he sinks to his knees. Tenn is here, now, bent over his shaking form, rubbing circles on his back with a hand as warm as the blood on his own.

He looks up at Tenn. It’s no different from usual, except everything is different now.

“I knew it,” Tenn breathes, face too close. His eyes are wide, and his fingers dig into Mitsuki’s shoulder. “You…”

Mitsuki laughs, and with it comes a bloody vomit of delicate petals and thorns. “I was going to tell you.”

He can feel every breath Tenn takes, or maybe that’s just his own wishful thinking. It’s soothing regardless, and he lets himself sink into Tenn’s touch, lets himself have this one thing, finally.

Tenn’s arms are around him, gathering him close, rocking him gently. Mitsuki lays his head against Tenn’s chest, and Tenn holds him there, hand cupped around his jaw. In another scenario, this would be a dream, everything Mitsuki has ever wanted. This intimacy, this tenderness, this love.

In another scenario, he wouldn’t be dying.

Tenn is comforting, Mitsuki realizes dully as the roots curl around his lungs, squeezing them tight. Tenn knows exactly what to do, exactly where to touch to make the pain almost disappear, to make him stop thinking about it.

Mitsuki imagines Riku in this same position, so many years ago.

He stops breathing entirely, the bud inside him bursting into bloom. With a strangled cry he pushes Tenn away, squeezes his eyes closed, stains the floor beneath them red.

He hears a dull thud that doesn’t come with pain, so he assumes he’s knocked Tenn into something. But he can’t see through the tears in his eyes to confirm. He claws at his throat, as if opening himself up will get rid of the thing inside him.

His nails are too short, too dull.

“Izumi Mitsuki!” Tenn’s voice is quiet over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. He is shaking, being shaken. Hands cling to his arms as desperately as he clings to his last breath. “Mitsuki!”

Another violent cough spills more flowers to the floor, the long stem catching in his throat. He retches, rakes his nails down his neck, blinks back the tears he can taste on his tongue. The stem slides up his esophagus and lands on the floor amidst a thousand tiny petals, all dyed a deep red. He doesn’t have the energy to guess their original color.

Each breath is a fire burning its path down his throat, and Mitsuki curls his fingers against the pain.

Fingers run across his lips, and Mitsuki opens bleary eyes to see Tenn kneeling in front of him, hand outstretched, lips parted just enough that Mitsuki can’t help but think about how they might taste. He clings to the fantasy even as the roots stir in his body again, even as he breathes out another petal.

Tenn’s fingers are bloody when he pulls away.

Mitsuki realizes with another cough, with another petal, that he needs to clean this up before anyone sees it. His attack wasn’t quiet; someone probably heard them.

He braces himself to stand, but a firm hand stops him. Blood soaks into his ruined shirt.

“Don’t get up,” Tenn says quietly, almost a whisper. “Please.”

“I have to—” He chokes on the flowers again, “—before they see—”

Tenn shakes his head and forces Mitsuki back down. “Before who sees? It’s just us here.”

The vine climbing up his throat pauses its ruinous trek as he remembers: everyone else is working today. He’s here alone.

With Tenn.

“Then wh—?” Mitsuki chokes on the scandent vine as it sprouts its buds, continuing its merciless climb. It weaves a deadly lace pattern along the roof of his mouth, across his teeth. Tendrils unfurl from his lips and curl outward, mouth forced open in a shout he can’t voice.

Tenn flinches away, eyes downcast. “I came here to see you today.”

Mitsuki wants to apologize. The vines creep down his neck.

“I’ve known something was wrong since your last live,” he continues. “I came here to confront you about it, but…”

Tenn reaches out again. His eyes are wide as he picks at the bloody vine, prying it off of Mitsuki’s skin. He caresses Mitsuki’s face with his other hand, so gentle and comforting.

“I’m sorry.”

Fresh tears prickle behind Mitsuki’s eyes.

“This is my fault.” Tenn peels more of the vine away. “If I had said something sooner, if I’d…”

Mitsuki coughs, and the leaves rustle like an April thunderstorm. Tenn pulls on the vine, and it dislodges as Mitsuki chokes on more vomit. The vine falls into the tiny space between them, white buds bathed in old blood.

“Izumi Mitsuki.” Tenn runs a thumb across Mitsuki’s cheek, wipes away his tears. “I love you, too. From the beginning.”

The roots boring into his veins stir, and Mitsuki braces himself for the impact of another flower.

He keeps waiting.

He breathes in. It’s sharp, burning, unbearable. But it’s possible. There’s no flower, no vine, no stem creeping its way upward.

Mitsuki looks at Tenn. Tenn returns the gaze, eyes suddenly young, innocent, anxious.

Worried.

For him.

It’s a monumental effort, his throat searing and raw with each vibration of his vocal folds, but he manages a weak, relieved, genuine, “Me, too.”

Tenn’s breathy laugh is punctuated with a sob, and he lets Mitsuki fall onto his lap, bloodied fingers running through his sweat-soaked hair. Each breath is painful, but it comes easy, with the cool air burning his throat on its way to his ravaged lungs.

For the first time, Mitsuki can’t imagine Riku in his place. He smiles and pulls Tenn’s healing warmth around him.

He sleeps for the first time in days, on a bed of carnations and roses.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, my twitter is [@aegious!](https://twitter.com/aegious)


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